This award-winning novel, woven into the framework of eighteenth century West Africa, recounts the story of Queen Abraha Pokou's sacrifice of her son to save the Baoule people. But it is also
much more than that. Telling and retelling the story, changing key elements each time - what if the queen saved her son? what if she went crazy from grief? what if she ended up on a slave ship?
and so on - Veronique Tadjo explores both intimate personal relationships and broad historical themes. Her multiple retellings of events surrounding the founding of the Baoule invites
discussion not only of the past, but also about the challenges of the present, most notably the bloody ethnic wars that have engulfed West Africa in recent decades.
